Impact of Care in an Interdisciplinary Inflammatory Bowel Disease Specialty Clinic on Outcomes in Patients Insured with Medicaid

Abstract

Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients are known to benefit from care delivered in a specialized, interdisciplinary setting. We aimed to evaluate the impact of this model on health outcomes, quality metrics, and health care resource utilization (HRU) in IBD patients insured with Medicaid.

Materials and methods: In July 2017, IBD patients at our tertiary hospital were transitioned from a fellows' general gastroenterology (GI) clinic to a fellows' interdisciplinary IBD clinic. IBD patients were included if they were insured with Medicaid, had at least 1 visit in the general GI clinic between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017, and at least 1 visit between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018 in the IBD clinic. Characteristics related to patients' IBD course, overall health care maintenance, and HRU were compared.

Results: A total of 170 patients (51% male, mean age 39 y) were included. After the transition to the IBD clinic, use of corticosteroids (37% vs. 25%; P =0.004) and combination therapy were significantly lower (55% vs. 38%; P =0.0004), although use of high-dose biologics numerically increased (58.5% vs. 67%; P =0.05). Posttransition, patients showed significantly lower levels of mean C-reactive protein ( P =0.04). After the transition, patients attended significantly fewer outpatient GI visits ( P =0.0008) but were more often seen by other health care specialists ( P =0.0003), and experienced a numeric decrease in HRU with fewer emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and surgeries.

Conclusions: Care in an interdisciplinary, IBD specialty setting is associated with significantly decreased corticosteroid use, decreased C-reactive protein levels, and improved access to ancillary services in Medicaid patients.